Dance Of Death

SIXTEEN

The chopper landed at a corporate heliport in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where a car without a driver awaited. By nine o'clock, Pendergast was crossing into D.C. It was a cold, sunny January day, with a weak yellow sun filtering through the bare branches of the trees, leaving frost in the shadows.

In a few minutes, he was driving along Oregon Avenue, lined with stately mansions-one of Washington's most exclusive suburbs. He slowed as he passed Mike Decker's house. The tidy, brick-fronted Georgian seemed as somnolent as the rest of the neighborhood. No car was parked outside, but that in itself meant nothing: Decker ranked a car and driver when he wanted one.

Pendergast drove a block farther, then pulled over to the curb. Taking out a cell phone, he once again tried Decker's home and mobile. No answer.

Behind the row of mansions lay the wooded fastness of Rock Creek Park. Pendergast got out of the car with his attaché case and walked thoughtfully into the park. Diogenes, he felt sure, would be watching the scene and would recognize him despite his disguise- just as he felt sure he would recognize his brother, no matter what.

But he saw no one and heard nothing but the faint rush of water from Rock Creek.

He walked briskly along the fringe of the park, then darted across a driveway, crossed a garden, and came up through a hedge into Decker's backyard. The yard was deep and well tended, falling away at the rear into the dense woods of the park. There, hidden from the neighbors by thick shrubbery, he glanced up at the windows. They were closed, white curtains pulled shut. Glancing at the adjoining houses, he proceeded, with practiced casualness, across the yard and to the back door, pulling on a pair of gloves as he did so and leaving his attaché on the stoop.

Pendergast paused again, his alert eyes taking in every detail. Then, without knocking, he peered through the small window.

Decker's kitchen was modern and almost spartan in its bachelor emptiness. A folded newspaper lay on a counter beside the phone; a suit jacket had been draped over the back of a chair. On one side of the room, a door-shut-opened no doubt onto the basement stairway; on the other side, a dark corridor led into the front rooms of the house.

A shape lay on the floor of the corridor, vague in the dim light. It moved feebly, once, twice.

In an instant, Pendergast moved to pick the lock, only to find that the knob-broken-turned easily in his hand. There was a telltale cut wire: a security system had been bypassed. Nearby, the phone wire had also been snipped. He swept inside, darting toward the shape in the hall and kneeling on the broad floorboards.

A male Weimaraner lay there, eyes glassy, rear legs still twitching in slowing spasms. Pendergast ran his gloved fingers quickly over the dog's frame. Its neck had been broken in two places.

Now, rising, Pendergast reached into his pocket. When his hand appeared again, it was holding a gleaming Wilson Combat TSGC.45. Moving quickly and with utter silence, Pendergast searched the first floor of the house: wheeling around corners, gun extended, eyes darting over every surface and place of concealment. Living room, dining room, front hall, bath: all empty and still.

Next, Pendergast flew up the stairs, pausing to glance around at the upper landing. Four rooms gave onto a central hallway. Sunlight lanced in through the open doors, illuminating a few dust motes dancing lazily in the sluggish air.

Gun at the ready, he spun around the first doorway, which led into a back bedroom. Inside, the guest beds were made with almost military perfection, bedspreads tight across the mattresses and over the pillows. Beyond, the gaunt trees of Rock Creek Park were visible through the window. Everything was wrapped in a deep silence.

A faint sound came from nearby.

Pendergast froze, his hyperacute senses strained to the maximum. There had been one sound, only one: the slow outrush of air, like a languorous sigh.

He exited the back bedroom, darted across the hall, paused outside the entrance to the room opposite. Tall bookshelves and the edge of a table could be seen through the open door: a study. Here, closer, another sound could just be discerned-a fast, running patter as of a faucet improperly closed.

Tensing, gun forward, Pendergast wheeled around the door frame.

Mike Decker sat in a leather chair, facing his desk. He was ex-military and had always endowed his movements with economy and precision, yet it was not preciseness that kept him so erect in the chair. A heavy steel bayonet had been driven into his mouth, angling down through his neck and pinning him to the headrest. The point of the old bayonet pierced all the way through the chair back, sticking out the back side, its rough edge heavy with blood. Drops fell from its tip onto the sodden carpet.

Another low sigh sounded in Decker's ruined throat, like the collapsing of a bellows. It died into a faint, bloody gargle. The man stared sightlessly at Pendergast, white shirt stained a uniform red. Streams of blood still flowed across the table, running in slow meanders and draining, with a pattering sound, to the floor.

For a moment, Pendergast remained still, as if thunderstruck. Then he removed one glove and-leaning forward, careful not to step in the blood that had ponded beneath the chair-placed the back of his hand against Decker's forehead. The man's skin felt supple, elastic, and its surface temperature was no cooler than Pendergast's own.

Abruptly, Pendergast drew back. The house was silent-except for the steady dripping.

The sighs, Pendergast knew, were postmortem: air bleeding from the lungs as the body relaxed against the bayonet. Even so, Mike Decker had been dead less than five minutes. Probably less than three.

Yet again, he hesitated. The precise time of death was irrelevant. What was far more important was Pendergast's realization that Diogenes had waited until Pendergast entered the house before killing Decker.

And that meant his brother might still be here, in this house.

In the distance, at the threshold of hearing, came the wail of police sirens.

Pendergast swept the room, eyes glittering, searching for the slightest clue that might help him track down his brother. His eye finally rested on the bayonet-and, abruptly, he recognized it.

A moment later, his gaze fell to Decker's hands. One lay slack; the other was clenched in a ball.

Ignoring the approaching sirens, Pendergast withdrew a gold pen from his pocket and carefully teased the clenched hand open. Inside lay three strands of blond hair.

Retrieving a jeweler's loupe from his pocket, he bent forward and examined the hairs. Returning his hand back into his pocket, he exchanged the loupe for a pair of tweezers. Very carefully, he plucked every strand from the motionless hand.

The sirens were louder now.

By now, Diogenes was certainly gone. He had choreographed the scene, managed its many variables, with perfection. He had entered the house, no doubt immobilized Decker with some kind of drug, then waited for Pendergast to arrive before killing him. Chances were that Diogenes had deliberately tripped the burglar alarm while leaving the house.

A senior FBI agent lay dead, and the house would be picked apart in the search for clues. Diogenes would not risk sticking around- and neither could he.

He heard a screeching of tires, a confusion of sirens, as a phalanx of police cars barreled down Oregon Avenue, now just seconds from the house. Pendergast glanced back at his friend one last time, briskly wiped a trace of excess moisture from one eye, then dashed down the stairs.

The front door was now wide open, a security panel beside it blinking red. He leaped over the inert form of the Weimaraner, exited through the back door, snagged his attaché case, sprinted across the yard, and-tossing the strands of hair into a pile of dead leaves- vanished like a ghost into the shadowy depths of Rock Creek Park.